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Mindfulness is for Every Moment
The sitting is just practice. It’s living that you’re practicing for.
I sit. I breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Not changing my breathing, just observing it. Noticing the sensations, first of my breathe as it goes in and out of my nose, and then throughout my body as I scan up and down, side to side, inside to outside and back all around again and again until my body dissolves into a paradoxically sensation that is everything and nothing all at once.
I sit there, that pleasant buzz rolling through my body that no longer is, just being in the moment. No mind. No me. Just presence. Everywhere presence.
And then the timer goes off — I’d stay there forever if it wasn’t for that timer — and I must go on with my day.
But I don’t leave the mindfulness on that cushion.
It goes with me.
For that’s the purpose of the sit.
To train the mind for the real task — living.
It’s easy to slip into dissociation. Or to drift off, daydream, ruminate, worry about the future. Rather than living, existing in the moment, paying attention to what it is that you’re doing right in front of you.
To continually bring yourself back to that present. To notice, without judgement…
